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Sunday, July 5, 2009

Duathlon Levis Relay - Race Report

I woke up early and slowly finished to pack my stuff, I was in no rush since the start of the Duathlon was at 1pm. After that I drank a couple of coffee and had almond butter and banana on toast with oatmeal and yogurt and some fruit. Damn I eat like a truck ...

I rode there around 10am or so since I knew a couple of people who were competing in the half Ironman. 45 minutes prior to the start we had our pre race meeting, I was happy to see the runner of the team arrived because I was not that prepared to do the entire event by myself. After that I walked into the transition area and finished to get my spot ready. I wanted to head out for a quick ride but it was complicated, the transition zone is in a bad spot and going out for a warm up is painful so I decided to just run a little bit and then warm up during my first loop.

The race was a Duathlon Plus, it was 5km run then 90km ride and 10km run to finish. Marc was doing the running, he did a good job on both running legs. He ran the first 5km in 22:29. He was aiming for a 20min 5k but he started a little bit too fast and drained some energy on the first km and after that it was a bit harder to keep the pace.

The transition went pretty well, I was waiting for him into the transition zone and when he got by I took the chip and then started running with the bike. I jumped on the bike and had some minor problem clipping in my pedals, but overall not a bad transition.

When the bike leg started I told my runner "See you in 2h30" and I took off. After that I started doing some math in my head and realized that 2h30 was a hell of a good time for the bike split there and that maybe I was a bit optimistic ... But I just started mashing the bike as hard as I possibly could, for the first 6-7 loop or so I was over my LT heart rate and I started to wonder if I would be able to hold that pace. But I was feeling great so I didn't bother much with it.

After maybe 6 loop I started to get some rain at one end of the loop. When I got back to the start/finish line my runner asked my if I was sweaty or what, so I told him it was raining at the other end. Since the beginning we were having a nice little East wind, nothing too strong that was helping a bit on one side but that was not much of a trouble on the other side.

When the rain started the wind turned and started blowing stronger, like 20km/h (12mph). At that point it started raining really hard, I never rode in such weather. The sky was just pouring on us, seriously. My Garmin is full of water and it is supposed to be water proof, at least under the rain. At that point I had a really nice average and that stronger wind didn't make me happy since I started to worry that I would go under my dream goal of 34km/h (21.1 mph)

But I just kept mashing the pedals as hard as I could while having in my mind that I had 90km (56 miles) to do. I was passing people left and right and I got passed by a couple of REALLY fast guy, two of them even passed me twice, which made me kinda unhappy ;)

At some point, around 70km (43 miles) or so I could not see anything on my Garmin, the screen was full of fog kinda. So I ask Marc, my runner, how many loop I had to do still. He said 5, so I knew it was coming to an end, and I was happy about it because it was starting to be painful. But I still had that speed goal in the back of my mind and I knew I could not slow down a bit.

I kept mashing the pedals as hard as I could in the wonderful weather, while riding in so much water that I could not see the holes in the pavement anymore and I had to guess that at some point it would be smooth or not. I decided to wear tri short for this ride, I am not too sure yet why, but anyway I decided to wear them and I couldn't change my mind at that point so I had to deal with them. I was seriously starting to feel, or to not feel it anymore at that point.

But I kept going hard trying to give some time to my runner if we wanted to have a chance to grab some hardware. I finally made it to the 23rd loop in 2:34:10, which gave me an average of 35km/h (21.76 mph) I am a happy camper ;)

Jumping off the bike was not that good, I can't say why but I unclipped both feet and I had a hard time to jump off the bike. I should have just remove my shoes as I usually do during a Triathlon, it would have made me feel more comfortable.

Marc then headed out for the 10k, he ran it in 48:12 which was a great time in my opinion.

We finished the Duathlon with a time of 3:46:08, which was a really good time in my mind.

The competition was really fast this year, with the same time last year we would have finished second with almost 5 minutes in front of the third team. Every year it gets harder and harder because the other teams are stronger.